SECTION: Section B; Page 1; Column 5; Metropolitan Desk 

LENGTH: 1049 words

HEADLINE: In Yankee Bleachers, Triumph and Troubles;
Rabid Fans Could Miss Playoffs, or Worse, See Them From Box Seats

BYLINE:  By DAVID M. HALBFINGER 

BODY:
"Mom is drunk!" they screamed. "Mom is drunk!"

It was already the sixth inning at Yankee Stadium, but Theresa Hales, a k a Mom, wasn't really drunk, no matter what the other Bleacher Creatures were chanting. Sure, she'd had a sip or two of the frozen cocktail that somebody was passing around in souvenir plastic cups. But if she was reeling a little -- and she was not the only one -- it might have been from the hot afternoon sun. Truth to tell, everyone in Section 39 was staggering a little yesterday, and not just from the free-flowing beer or the marijuana fumes that wafted over from Section 41. For the Yankees, the 8-3 defeat of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays was a tuneup for the playoffs that will begin Tuesday. But for many hard-core, longtime fans who prefer the benches of the shadeless right-field bleachers, it was the season's last hurrah.

Under a new playoff ticket distribution system, the Yankees rewarded season-ticket holders and other fans with many of the seats in the bleachers, leaving the rest to the winners of a lottery of sorts held on Sept. 19. Many of the Creatures will be at each Yankees home game through the playoffs, but they will be scattered throughout the stadium. Some even gave in and bought the much more expensive box seats -- which under normal circumstances would be considered an act of treason.

"It's definitely a semisweet day," said Paul Kaplan, 31, of Manhattan, a five-year veteran of the bleachers. "We always had the playoffs to look forward to."

Tina Lewis, the dean of the Creatures, who says she has been a regular since 1985, was too worked up about the situation to talk much about it. She said she still held out hope that the Yankees would do the right thing when the World Series begins in the Bronx -- a foregone conclusion, of course -- and set aside a big enough cluster of seats cheap enough for the Creatures to make their raucous voices heard.

Because that is what Bleacher Creatures do.

They yell "Jump!" or "Throw your young!" at people in the upper deck who make the mistake of peering down over the rail. They jeer at anyone stupid enough to show up in a Mets hat until the cops down in front helpfully suggest that the offending fan remove it. They sing a warped version of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" that could make Kenneth Starr blush.

The uninitiated -- mothers and fathers watching from the right-field box seats and loges, for instance -- often smile bemusedly at these loud-mouthed, happy-go-lucky freaks in pro-wrestling shirts, Yankee tattoos and Yankee pendants on gold chains.

Then they begin to make out the words -- nearly all of which are unprintable, at least in context. Locker-room humor doesn't come close to Bleacher Creature humor.

There is an entire repertory devoted to the visiting team's right fielder, who would be well advised to have a thick skin or at least a pair of earplugs. There are chants, challenges and taunts for the bozos in the box seats who paid $23 for a view no better than the one from the $7 bleachers.

And there are riffs on the stadium special effects, like that annoying accelerating drumbeat. While lesser, sheeplike fans clap along anemically, the go-it-alone Creatures yell "Tom! Tom! Tom!" while the portly Tom Brown, 30, of Astoria, Queens, bumps, grinds and all but dislocates his pelvis.

"I love these people," Mr. Brown said, recovering from his exertion with a cold one. "And these people need loving. We're like the biggest dysfunctional family in the world."

He was not kidding. Take John McCarthy, 19, of the Woodlawn section of the Bronx. All game long, he filled out a score card, compulsively tracing over each entry 15 times or more in ballpoint ink. "To keep it from fading," he explained, still etching away in his inch-thick book of score cards. "I'm going to keep this locked up in a safe when I'm finished, to protect it from sunlight."

Mr. McCarthy has his reasons for obsessing. "I missed only seven home games this year, but the first one was David Wells's perfect game," he said. "I was devastated. I had to go to a family celebration, for my first cousin's 25th anniversary of his ordination as a priest. Nothing against my cousin, but if it was up to me, I'd be here."

Who needs blood relatives, after all, when you bleed Yankee blue?

Mr. Kaplan, an investment banker in Manhattan who was at his 67th game yesterday (nine of them were on the road), explained that those effete types in the box seats, who sometimes yell "Welfare seats!" at the Creatures, just don't get it.

"I, for one, choose to sit here," he said. "I've sat in box seats, and I don't have as much fun. I know that I can do no wrong here. And I'm accepted. We're all the same here.

"Besides, there's always a common enemy to hate."

Like Mets fans. Security guards. Clueless people who stand up before there are two strikes and two outs on the opposing team. Rally killers who run to the bathroom in the middle of an inning. Those halfhearted, so-called fans who slink off in the seventh inning to beat the traffic. Anyone who tries to start the Wave.

For years, the Creatures were a small but hardy lot. Then a Daily News sportswriter began chronicling their emotional highs and lows, and soon Section 39 was overrun with wannabes and hangers-on, all bragging about showing up for a mere 15 or 20 games a year.

As their media star has climbed, the Creatures have risen to the occasion, coming up with one new rousing yell after another. The best-known G-rated one is Roll Call: After the first pitch is thrown, the Creatures chant the names of nearly every Yankee player -- and of the team's two radio announcers -- until each doffs a cap or waves in response.

Listening, singing and shouting along to even the raunchiest chants are a few young children and their parents -- like Ms. Hales, the Creature known as Mom, and her 12-year-old son, Stan. A cook at a public school in the West Farms section of the Bronx, Ms. Hales said she figured her son would hear foul language at school anyway.

She said she had been going to Yankee games for 40 years when she took Stan to a right-field box for a game in 1996.

"In the box seats, it's so quiet," she said. "He heard all the rowdiness, and he started liking it."

Apparently, so did his mother.


GRAPHIC: Photo: The New York Yankees' victory over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays yesterday could be 1998's last hurrah for the enthusiastic fans who have made the bleachers their home. (Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times)

LOAD-DATE: September 28, 1998